I'm watching "Modern Marvels: Alaskan Fishing" on the History channel. (Obviously Mountain Man's night of CRC -Control of the Remote Control). Anyway, you'd think you'd have lots of burly men with fishing lines catching fish, no? Um. No.
What you have is huge boats with tremendous nets that literally scoop up 100 tons of pollack fish in one great swoop.
"Pollack?" asks you, oh constant reader.
Ever have a McDonald's Fish fillet or frozen fish sticks? That would be pollack.
Dangerous? Maybe, but this is summer fishing...No Deadliest Catch here. Heck, some of these guys aren't even wet!
Which reminds me of a mysuestories fishing tale.....
(Insert dream sequence harp music here)
Now, I had fished as a youngun, with my parents and sisters on a twenty(?) foot wooden outboard my dad had years ago. He would be all excited and load us all up on the boat on the weekends. And every weekend was pretty much the same. Complaining, bored kids, mom's notoriously sun poisoned nose, and very little fish in the pot.
But he was either a man with dire determination or just a glutton for punishment, because the trips continued for quite a while.
Now, as a seven year old, there ain't a whole lot of fun in waiting for anything, no less a possible nibble on a line by a fish.
And at seven? Every little wave made it feel as if I HAVE A BITE!!!!! And after every little rocking motion or wave, that's exactly what I would cry to my Dad, otherwise known as the patron Saint of Patience.
And with every little wave, I would reel in my line, ready to catch THE BIG ONE, only to find nothing but the original bait on the hook. Not to mention that my continuous casting and reeling in of the line probably scared away any half way decent fish within twenty miles!
Hours into one of these little "fun" family escapades, I was casting and reeling in nothing but seaweed every three minutes, each time screaming, "I got something! I got something!"
Is it any wonder my father had long since stopped even coming over to watch me reel in, no less maintained his restraint at throwing ME overboard. ( Did I mention I always was/still am the favorite? -Sorry, kisters, but it's not like you read this blog anyway!)
Anyway....the little girl who cried wolf. I'm screaming like only a panicked seven year old girl can:
"I GOT SOMETHING!!!! I GOT SOMETHING!!!"
Followed by parental murmurings that were probably the equivalent of "Geez, here we go again," or "Shit, Sue (no, not the dog-but for years, I did think they'd named a breed after me!) not again!"
But this time, there really was something on the other end of that fishing pole. Honest, I swear! And it wasn't letting go. But then, neither was I. I had waited hours, weeks, maybe even years(?) for this moment! I was gonna reel in Moby Dick if it killed me!
Hours(?), moments(?), seconds(?)....An eternity later, Dad's parental instincts (or fear of answering to Child Protective Services) must have kicked in as he saw his youngest ( and did I mention favorite?) daughter about to be pulled over board.
He leaped over one of the three wooden slats that passed for seating, and grabbed the pole from me. Picture, if you will, three gleefully screeching girls and my mom with her over sized, not helping the sun poisoned nose a bit hat, while my dad reeled in my Moby Dick!
OK. This is mysuestories, and in a perfect world, Ahab could have landed Moby Dick. Not so on the SS.Mysuestories.
My dad reeled into the boat, off of mysuestories little line that couldn't, a six foot long slithering eel!
Now, picture, if you will, three pre-pubescent girls and their hysterical mother all screaming and bouncing and leaping onto slats that double as seats as the very snake like eel slithers across the bottom of our very tiny vessel!
At some point, our Dad in shining armour manges to behead the evil dragon/eel, before we womenfolk overturned the boat. And all order is restored to the SS.Mysuestories.
Alas! A great and plentiful meal is served at the mysuestories castle of her youth that evening, in the form of eel (which mysuestories refused to eat, and so a McDonald's side trip was run- And NO, constant reader, it was NOT a Fish Filet Sandwich).
And from that day henceforth, whenever the fair maiden known as mysuestories uttered the ear splitting call of "I GOT SOMETHING!", somebody always checked her line.
She never caught another thing on that boat as a child.
But sometimes, well, sometimes, just the one time is enough!
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